Try to look at the whole picture. How much time and gas do you use to recycle? Remember, every recycling system uses energy.
Fair enough, but of course I have thought about this before:
Gas
I described two recycling systems I have participated in.
In my current system I use no gas because the recycling is picked up with my trash. Granted the recycling truck uses gas, but if people didn't recycle, more regular garbage trucks would be required which would also use gas.
In the prior system where I took recycling to a downtown center, I only went there when I had to go downtown anyway, so I used no extra gas. The center was 1 block from the post office, in a place I had to pass by frequently.
Time
Because I don't use many newspapers I only have to separate my recyclables into two containers, one for metal, glass, and plastic bottles, and one for cardboard. Most of these items are empty food containers that are set aside as we empty them in the kitchen. Once a week I transfer this to the recycling containers and add any larger cardboard that has accumulated. As I said earlier this only takes a few minutes, plus it saves me making more trips since the regular kitchen garbage fills up much more slowly.
Apparently the recyclers have a machine that separates the metal, glass, and plastic. They don't take every kind of plastic but they do take the vast majority and it is easy to identify.
At my prior location I was accumulating a large number of plastic bottles for reasons I won't get into. I could just store these in bags until it was convenient to go to the recycling center where it only took a few minutes to get rid of them. Again, I was greatly diminishing the volume of my regular trash.
Money
You forgot this. As I pointed out I save money with the current system. The recycling service costs about 1/4 the cost of adding another garbage can. Plus they seemingly take any amount. I have recycled multiple large bundles of cardboard that would not even fit in my trash can.
Since the recyclers are a private company and are charging me very little, I'm guessing that they are making a profit from the recycled materials.
With the system at my previous location, the recycling generated money for the local high school, so I was happy to help them out.
Environment
So, to summarize, this level of recycling does not cost me any gas or money or a significant amount of time. Plus I get to feel like I am doing my part for the environment to a reasonable degree. I do not consider this minimal civic duty to be onerous at all. It appears to me that the recycling system I participate in is probably a net saver of energy. It's a net plus.
I’m certainly not against recycling for certain things. The only thing I hope people understand is that for every effort taken to do something, energy is used. When people do extra cleaning of recyclables, naturally they use up more water and whatnot. The recycling companies must use energy to pick up and recycle. I guess on a very limited,personal level recycling can be beneficial. But the larger an operation is, the more energy and resources will be used up.